“Hello?”
“Sorry to bother you, Nicola, this is Jerold.”
“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
I looked at the clock and grimaced to myself. I don’t know what I had been thinking, but it was starting to look like I had missed her for the week. I should have just accepted it, but there was a part of me that just couldn’t. How could I accept that I wouldn’t get to see her for another couple of days? To me, the thought was unacceptable.
“Have you already gone for the day?”
“Yes, sir.”
I didn’t like her calling me ‘sir’ after I had told her over and over again to call me by my name.
“It’s Jerold.”
“Well, Jerold, I already left for the day. Was there something else that you needed done?” I could hear the hope that there wasn’t in her voice. I just kind of shook my head. I knew that I needed more than just one thing. I needed her, but I couldn’t say that kind of thing out loud.
“Would you like to go out for the night? We could celebrate your first week on the job.”
“Um, I have to go to my parents’ for dinner. It’s like a family tradition. You wouldn’t want to come, would you? I mean, my family is a little crazy, after all.”
The invitation was not what it seemed. I knew very well that she was trying to get rid of me, but there was going to be none of that. “Yes, I would love to come with you. Where and what time?”
She hesitated, and I tried to keep the grin off my face. I was acting like she was right there, and true to form, when she said yes, I actually did a little dance that made me feel like an idiot when I was done.
“Um, I can just give you the address and you can stop by whenever you are ready. I will be there in about half an hour, sir.”
“Please call me Jerold.”
“Sorry. I will work on that.”
I hung up the phone. I was smiling from ear to ear. Just the idea of going out with her had me thinking that I could do anything. I knew that with her, there would be nothing that could stand in my way. Nicola was the type of woman who made a man feel like he could do anything. I knew that I was worried about lots of things, but in the end, I was fairly certain I had picked the right girl. If she wasn’t the right one, why in the world did I feel this way?
***
I had to really think about whether I was going to go to her parents’ house. I knew the address that she gave me, and it made me pause. I was almost their age, and I had no illusions about how little I was going to be welcomed. I thought long and hard, but there was still this desire to go. I wanted to see her, and if I had to go around Angela and Martin, I was okay with that.
So I got ready quickly and I was waiting outside her parents’ house a few minutes earlier than she’d said. I wasn’t the only one who seemed to be taking a moment before going up to knock on the door. For whatever reason, several more cars pulled up while I was sitting outside, but nobody got out. I was waiting for Nicola to get there, and when I saw her small red car I got out and started to walk towards her.
There was a man in a blue car who’d been waiting almost as long as I had. It was only when he got out and started to walk towards her car that I started to wonder who he was. I didn’t like the way he was looking at her. The blond man seemed nervous, and I wondered then if I looked the same. He looked the way I felt at the moment.
Nicola saw him first. I know that I would have been very angry if she had welcomed him and looked at him the same way he was looking at her. But it wasn’t a happy expression on her face, and I went from hatred to curiosity. Why was she looking at him in such a way? It wasn’t really fear, but Nicola was definitely not happy to see him, whoever he was.
I waited for her to see me. When she did I was rewarded with her slight smile, as I had hoped. There was no denying the innocence in her eyes – and the need that I hadn’t thought to see before. It was just a flash and then it was gone, but it was there.
“Jamie, sorry about this. I am glad you came. Mom and dad will be happy to see you.”
The blond man gave me a dirty look, which made me smile, and then took off towards the house in a little bit of a huff.
“One of the family?”
Nicola looked at his back and shook her head. “No, he’s just a person that used to hang around a lot and knows everyone.”
“He seemed to know you very well.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath and I had to take her arm before she would budge. “I can’t believe you would say that, sir.”
“Isn’t it true?”
Nicola nodded and told me that it was his ex-fiancé. It was not at all what I wanted to hear, but I told myself it didn’t matter. She was there with me, on my arm, and I wasn’t going to let anyone change that. Jamie was just going to have to be mad. He had lost his chance, and I was not going to be as stupid as to lose her.
I felt possessiveness overtake me when I noticed Jamie staring at Nicola as we came through the door. I wanted to pull her into me, claim her right then and there, but I was her boss, after all, and I knew it wouldn’t go down well. Not that I cared how her family reacted; it was the small chance that Nicola would pull away from me that I couldn’t take.
So Nicola introduced me to everyone as her boss. I wasn’t sure that I liked the title. We were more. I was more to her than just that. Even though I knew that I was her boss, I didn’t want them to see me in that way. When it came out that we were together, everyone would know how things started out.
The thought made me pause. I could feel myself getting quieter. Why was I thinking so far in the future? It wasn’t like me, and there was part of me that felt strange to feel that way. I wasn’t used to being so out of my element, but everything with her had seemed to put me on a different path than I would have expected.
I was invited into the dining room, where I met more of Nicola’s family. There was a mess of them, and I knew that I was never going to remember all of their names. When I looked around after a few minutes, I couldn’t see Nicola anywhere. She had left me in the midst of them.